"Me too," Hannah says. She leans forward and wraps Baker in a tight hug, losing herself to the smell of Baker's perfume and the beat of Baker's heart against her chest. "You're the absolute best," Hannah says, and then she kisses Baker's cheek.

Baker pulls back from her until they're looking at each other full on. And it's startling, because all Hannah can see are deep, dark eyes, the eyes she has trusted for years, but tonight there is something blazingly different in them, something ancient and yearning, something that calls to a feeling deep inside of Hannah. Baker leans in and kisses Hannah's cheek very slowly and gently-like she means it-and when she draws back Hannah sees that same something in her eyes again, and it prompts her to lean forward and kiss Baker's other cheek. Baker's skin is soft under her lips, and when Hannah pulls back she feels Baker touch her face again, her fingers gentle but commanding on Hannah's jaw, and then they're moving towards each other again, both of them wanting to kiss each other's cheeks, except this time they're facing each other directly.

They kiss each other's lips, and Hannah feels the spring of creation in her body and blood.

It's a bursting, awakening feeling. It's so potent that it almost hurts, the way it feels to eat a morsel of food after a long period of starvation. Every nerve beneath Hannah's skin-every deep, hidden crevice in her body-every tiny atom that makes her who she is-they all jazz to life, as if they had been long ago buried and were simply waiting to be called upon to arise. Hannah opens her eyes and finds Baker looking at her with a kind of breathless, frightened desire, like a child who just got caught with her hand in a cookie jar, so Hannah leans forward again before either one of them can think about it. She kisses Baker's lips, and once again all her nerves spring to life, and her heartbeat quickens in her chest, and the drunken part of her sings Oh, yes even while the sober part of her warns Oh, no. Baker's mouth moves against hers, and now they're full on kissing, their lips sliding against each other's while Hannah's heart rises up to fill the room around them. And it's magic, it's sacred ritual, it's G.o.d.

And now Baker's making small noises, and her hands are running up and down Hannah's arms, and her breathing is as erratic as her kisses. Her lips are wet and Hannah wants to kiss them, kiss them, kiss them, and in some distant, forgotten part of her mind, she finally understands what the big deal is, why people want to kiss, why this action communicates so much more than words ever could.

"Han," Baker says against her mouth, and never before has Hannah heard her name p.r.o.nounced with such fear and such reverence. She answers with another kiss, with a turn of her head, and Baker receives her kiss with a desperate eagerness Hannah never knew she possessed.

And then their tongues are involved, moving into each other's mouths with exploratory fervor, and deep inside of Hannah there's a voice that says, This is your best friend, this is your best friend, over and over, and it seems to intensify the physical feelings even more. They kiss and kiss and kiss, and Hannah hears soft whimpers and breaths escaping from Baker's body, or maybe from her own, and she can't think of anything except how much she loves this.

"Hannah," Baker says, her voice more fearful than reverent. She draws away and wipes her fingers across her mouth, and Hannah sees that her hand is shaking.

"Baker-"

"Let's go back out to the party," Baker says, standing up and walking toward the door, her voice high and panicked like it is when she thinks she said the wrong thing to someone.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm just drunk-I think you're pretty drunk, too-I think we're both really wasted-"

"We're okay-" Hannah says.

Baker looks into the mirror and rubs her fingers over her lips again. Her hand is still shaking. "I need some water," she says. "I think I'm pretty drunk."

Then she leaves the bathroom, and Hannah's left sitting on the tub with her heart in her throat.

Joanie drives them home. "I'm fine," she a.s.sures Hannah. "I only drank two beers and Luke made me drink, like, six cups of water before we left. What's up with you, Baker? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Baker says, her voice high and breathless from the backseat. "Just drank too much."

Joanie snorts. "That's a first."

Hannah's mom calls down to them when they walk into the house. Hannah tries hard to sound sober and is grateful to Joanie for doing most of the talking. "Yes, Mama, we're all heading to bed," Joanie says, sounding exasperated as she kicks off her shoes. Under her breath, she says, "You're driving next time, Hannah."

Baker doesn't speak to Hannah as they get ready for bed. They change in silence-both of them turn away into opposite corners of the room-and brush their teeth without looking at each other's reflections. When Baker gets into bed and turns on her side away from Hannah, Hannah steps toward the door and says, "I'll get us some water."

"Thanks," Baker says.

When Hannah returns with two plastic tumblers full of ice water, Baker is fast asleep, or at least pretending to be.

Chapter Four: Dirty.

When Hannah wakes in the morning, she finds Baker packing up her overnight bag, the tumbler of water next to her.

"Hey," Hannah says.

Baker doesn't look up. "Hey."

"You feeling okay?"

"I think I'm hungover."

"Yeah. Me too. Just drink that water. Want me to put on some coffee for you?"

Baker hesitates; she snaps in an earring and looks down at the floor.

Hannah sits fully up in bed. "Look," she says, tying her hair into a bun, "I know we're both being weird about last night-"

"Don't," Baker says, her face scrunched up.

"Don't?"

"Just-don't try to bridge last night and this morning. You always do that. You always try to bring things out in the open. Just let it be, okay? It was a party, it was a late night, we were both really drunk, so let's just leave it alone. I don't want to talk about it."

"But we-"

"Hannah."

Baker's voice is sharp when she speaks. Hannah feels something sink in her stomach.

"Okay," she says.

Then they exist in silence, and Hannah feels like they are two little kids sitting in a mud puddle, unsure of how this submersion feels, unsure of whether they'll ever be clean again.

"I need to take Charlie out," Baker says, standing up and swinging her bag over her shoulder. "I'll see you later."

"Have fun," Hannah says, her voice sounding fake to her own ears.

Baker leaves the room, and Hannah retreats under the covers.

Later that morning, Hannah's mom drags Hannah and Joanie to Ash Wednesday Ma.s.s at St. Mary's. "We don't want to go," Joanie whines from the backseat of the car.

"Too bad," their mom says.

"We don't want dirt on our foreheads," Hannah says.

"Stop calling it 'dirt.' Be respectful. With all the blessings in your lives, you should want to go thank G.o.d for everything you have."

Hannah sits through Ma.s.s with knots in her stomach. Father Simon delivers a homily about the start of the Easter season, about what it means for them as Catholics, about how they should remember Christ's deliberate sacrifice every day for these next six weeks. Hannah averts her eyes from the life-size Crucifix that hangs above the altar.

She falls in line to receive ashes, feels Father Simon thumb the ashes into a cross-shaped pattern on her forehead, hears the words-Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return-murmured all around her.

She returns to her pew and tries not to touch her forehead. To her left, Joanie and her mom seem unfazed by the ashes: Joanie picks at her nails and her mom closes her eyes in prayer. But Hannah cannot resist raising a hand to her forehead and pressing her fingers against the mark there. When she draws her hand away, her fingers are tainted with dirty charcoal. She does not look up at the Crucifix.

She still feels unsettled when they get home from Ma.s.s. Her mom pours herself a gla.s.s of sweet tea and goes into the study to check her e-mail. Hannah and Joanie shuffle around the kitchen, making themselves chicken salad sandwiches, Joanie chatting about how funny Luke was at the party last night.

Hannah pours herself a gla.s.s of water. Just as she's about to take a sip, she remembers, with a jolt, how it felt to kiss Baker.

No, she tells herself, blocking the feelings. You don't want that. No.

She plops down on the couch with Joanie, trying hard to feel carefree, trying not to look back at the memory she just discarded in the kitchen. Joanie turns on the TV, scrolls through the guide, and chooses an E! True Hollywood Story episode.

"So what are you gonna give up for Lent?" Joanie asks at commercial.

Hannah takes a bite of her sandwich to buy herself some time. She drinks another sip of water.

"Nothing," she says.

She falls into an uneasy sleep that night, her face buried in her arm and her body sweating under the heavy comforter. She sees Baker's eyes again, dark and deep and startling, and then she is awash in the tactile memory of kissing her last night. Her body starts to ache all over-her chest aches, and her stomach aches, and, most concerning, the area between her legs aches. She tries to shut it down, to think of something else, but she wants to give into it, she wants to feel that mystical experience again.

She wakes, hours later, in terror. She sits straight up in bed with her heart sprinting in her chest. Her face and neck are damp with cold sweat. She sweeps the back of her hand across her forehead and remembers, with the force of a stone slinging down into her belly, that she had been dreaming about G.o.d.

School resumes on Thursday. Hannah's esophagus burns with nausea as she drives into the parking lot and spots Baker's car.

But Baker steps out to greet her with her usual smile. "So get this," she says, launching into conversation before Hannah can even fully look at her, "Charlie has figured out how to open doors with his paws."

Hannah hesitates for only a pocket of a moment, recognizing the offering for what it is. This is normal. We can be normal.

"That's crazy," Hannah says, her voice sounding only slightly affected. "What'd your mom say?"

Baker's eyes relax. "She's freaked out. Worried he'll get into her china cabinet or something."

"That's ridiculous," Hannah says, her voice sounding normal as they walk into the building. "If she understood Charlie's personality at all, she'd know he has no interest in frilly ceramic china."

Baker laughs. "Exactly."

The hallways are subdued, with most people talking lazily to their friends or whining about how they want to go back to bed. The bell rings to get to first block, but while the freshmen scurry to heed it, most of the seniors just roll their eyes and drag their feet to their cla.s.srooms. Even the teachers seem reluctant to be back: Mr. Montgomery makes no effort to hide his yawning, and Madame Rowley, Hannah's French teacher, leans against her doorframe and chugs a 24-ounce coffee as students walk by. There's an unspoken agreement that today and tomorrow don't count as real school days because they comprise a two-day workweek coming on the heels of a five-day party.

After second block ends and the bell rings for lunch, Hannah and Wally walk slowly down the hallway, feeling lethargic after their una.s.signed period. They're about to reach the main lobby when they come upon Baker and Luke leaning against the white tiled wall outside the front office, their shoulders slumped and their expressions downcast.

"What's going on?" Hannah asks.

"Clay's in Manceau's office," Luke says.

"Michele went to Father Simon about the party," Baker says.

"Oh, Jesus," Hannah says.

"Are you serious?" Wally says.

"Yep," Luke says. "Why does she even go to these parties if she's just gonna rat us all out afterwards?"

"She's probably p.i.s.sed because Clay didn't pay attention to her," Hannah says.

"Apparently she told Father Simon she was upset by how much drinking our cla.s.s does," Baker says.

"Yeah, as if she didn't used to be right there with us," Luke says.

The four of them stand with their backs against the cold tile and listen to the din of chatter coming from the undercla.s.smen in the cafeteria. The front office secretaries on the other side of the office windows glance up at them every other minute, their eyebrows arched and their lips pursed.

Finally Clay comes out of Manceau's office, a grimace on his face. They watch through the front office windows as his tall form weaves around the secretaries' desks-he smiles politely at the secretaries, then frowns again as soon as he's past-and exits into the main lobby.

"What happened?" Wally says.

Clay fidgets with the knot in his tie. "They can't prove that I had the party, but they're using 'an anonymous student's word' to go on-"

"Michele," Hannah says.

"Yeah," Clay grumbles. "So then Manceau gave me a bunch of bulls.h.i.t about how St. Mary's expects better of me because I'm football captain and all that. Oh, but then get this, he interrupted his lecture halfway through because his wife called and wanted to know whether he'd prefer 'teacup pink' or 'b.u.t.ter yellow' paint for their bedroom, so then he spent like six minutes debating the options with her, and then finally he gets off the phone and tells me that he wants to suspend me but can't because he has no proof. So then Father Simon comes in and is all, 'I'm praying for you during this time of reflection' and some other bulls.h.i.t."

"So what's going to happen?" Hannah asks. "Anything?"

"No," Clay says, with a trace of a smirk. "Other than them calling my parents. But you know my dad would sue the fat rolls off Manceau if he tried to suspend me with no proof-"

"Yeah, but your dad will skin you alive," Wally says.

"Nah. He'll be p.i.s.sed, and my mom will probably cry a little bit, but they've already been through this kind of thing with Ethan. They'd only care if something really bad happened. But it's not like I had a party and someone died."

"Let's go outside," Baker says, peering over their shoulders at the front office. "Mrs. Adler's sending us death glares."

They shuffle out to the senior courtyard and take their place at their favorite table, where Joanie sits waiting for them, tapping her foot against the table leg. "Where the h.e.l.l were y'all?" she says. "I look like an idiot sitting here by myself."

"Yeah, because that's the only time you look like an idiot," Hannah says.

"Clay got in trouble with Manceau," Luke says, rubbing Joanie's back as he sits down.

"What happened?"

Clay launches into the story again, and Joanie's features elongate in astonishment at all the right parts, and when Clay has finished, the six of them turn in their seats to search out Michele amongst the courtyard dwellers.

"She's not coming to any more parties," Clay says, his face souring as he looks in Michele's direction. "Tell everyone you can. Make sure the whole cla.s.s knows not to invite her to things."

"Amen," Joanie says, and Luke nods vigorously at her side. Wally regards Michele with a thoughtful look on his face-the one Hannah has seen him wear when he tries to solve a challenging new calculus problem-and Baker, when Hannah shifts her head to look at her, wears the same expression Hannah has seen her wear many times before: the one that means her heart is battling with her head, that her instinct to empathize is wrestling with her compulsion to keep social order.

Mrs. Shackleford announces an impromptu a.s.sembly the next morning. Hordes of students sweep into the gym and plop themselves down on the bleachers, and Mrs. Shackleford and Father Simon stand in the middle of the gym floor, their eyes watching every movement.

Mrs. Shackleford speaks for three minutes about the standards of behavior she expects from St. Mary's students. She never mentions Clay's Mardi Gras party, but the soph.o.m.ores, juniors, and seniors avert their eyes, all of them understanding the message. Only the freshmen look blankly around at each other, and Hannah, sitting on the end of a row in the senior section, hears a freshman several feet away whisper, "Is this about Marshall pa.s.sing around that dirty cat comic yesterday?"